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Gates fakes cuts, drives spending

Defense Secretary Robert Gates speaks to the media about proposed budget cuts. |
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By LAWRENCE KORB | 1/28/11 4:59 AM EST
Updated: 1/28/11 8:44 AM EST

During the Bush administration’s post-Sept. 11 years, the United States spent $4.6 trillion — in 2010 dollars — on defense, or about $460 billion a year, excluding war costs. This was a 17.5 percent increase over the post-Cold War, peace dividend years of 1991-2000, slightly above the Cold War average of $450 billion per year.

One year ago, President Barack Obama laid out a defense plan for 2011-2020 that called for spending $5.8 trillion — or $580 billion a year. This represented an additional 25 percent real increase in defense spending above the 1990s.

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Meanwhile, the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform recently proposed a defense program of $4.9 trillion — or $490 billion a year for 2011-2020. This is a 15 percent decrease from Obama’s plan but still 6 percent more than the Bush years and the Cold War average.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates called the commission’s proposed cuts catastrophic and is determined to fend off any cuts of that magnitude. But under pressure from the White House, Gates reluctantly agreed to more than $78 billion in reductions from 2012 to 2015, a cut of 4 percent from Obama’s plan.

Gates’s reduction would mean that, over the next four years, the Pentagon would, on average, spend about $100 billion — almost 20 percent more than it did during the Bush years. Yet the defense secretary’s proposal was derided by many conservatives with terms like “farewell to arms,” “reckless” and “conditional surrender.” The Obama administration, meanwhile, was criticized for being soft on defense.

Gates has only himself to blame for this state of affairs. Rather than saying that, despite the hard economic times, the defense budget is still going up, or that the fiscal 2012 budget will be higher than the fiscal 2011 budget in real terms, he emphasized only the cuts he was making. In addition, rather than claiming just the $78 billion in cuts in the proposed budget, Gates tried to take credit for making $178 billion in cuts — without acknowledging that $100 billion of those cuts would be shifted to other programs.

Readers' Comments (11)

Obama has run unemployment up to 10%. He has thrown trillions of dollars on who-inows-what with no effect on the unemployment rate and is prepared to chase it with a few trillion more in spending money borrowed from the Communist Chinese. He has run up a deficit of three trillion dollars in two years and is going to set another deficit record this year. The economy is in a mess, the deficit is a mess, there has been no budget out of the Democratic House last year, we are losing respect around the world not only from our enemies but from our friends also, two wars continue on with no end in sight and the country is facing its deepest divide since the Civil War.

The big question is - with George Bush being out of the picture now for over two years, Republicans held powerless in both houses of Congress for two years, and Democrats in firm control of all the levers of government for the past two years, how can all this mess that has been made of EVERYTHING possibly be blamed on Bush and the Republicans? Well, Politico found a way.

This "soft on defense" line is the biggest disservice to the American people ever. We spend too much money, and a big chunk of that is defense. To protect a budget that everyone knows is bloated and choose debt over sizing the military to what the American people are actually willing to pay for is insane. The military is the poster child of waste. Hundreds of dollars for hammers and toilet seats? And how do military bands make us safer? Are we planning to hold parades when the government collapses under debt? Stop our politicians from trying to out-cowboy each other and drive unneeded defense dollars to their home districts. This is one case where less is more- less defense money can makes us safer and stronger.

Gates has only himself to blame for this state of affairs. Rather than saying that, despite the hard economic times, the defense budget is still going up, or that the fiscal 2012 budget will be higher than the fiscal 2011 budget in real terms, he emphad only the cuts he was making. In addition, rather than claiming just the $78 billion in cuts in the proposed budget, Gates tried to take credit for making $178 billion in cuts — without acknowledging that $100 billion of those cuts would be shifted to other programs.

He also gave himself credit for having made $300 billion in reductions since he came into office in 2006, yet Gates failed to note that the baseline defense budget has grown by 19 percent, or $87 billion, in real terms since 2010.

An example of the CLASSIC shell game inside the Beltway --- I asked for $10 more next year than I had last year, but only got $5 more. Therefore, I "cut" $5 and should be feted as a budget cut hero!!

Kolb gets a little wonky with the details he used for his comparisons, but the bottom line is that Obama has been spending tens of billions more each year on Defense, and intends to do so in the out years in real terms.

There are no cuts -- not now, and not in the future.

It would be actual progress if the Defense budget were just held to last year's highest ever amount. Yet even this modest attempt to reign in Defense spend would have Gates go bananas. Gates complained a couple days ago while in Canada that the current situation of having to operate within a "continguing resolution" for FY11 [thanks to Pelosi and Reid not bothering to pass a budget for FY11] is damaging his ability to function -- he called it the "crises on my doorstep" a couple days ago while in Canada.

Foxfan: It is simple, when you sink a boat you don't lame the damage on the salvage company. When an arsonist lights a building on fire you don't blame the firefighters. That is what these so called "Conservatives" do. Blame the firefighter for the fire at the same time you turn his water supply off.

Sure, Al Qaeda is a threat and China is increasing its military capabilities, but together they do not pose the existential threat that the Soviet Union did. Nor are they as serious a threat to our security as the deficit.

TeamPOLITICO: Jan. 28, 2011 - 4:58 AM EST

One group not fooled by Gates’s theatrics is Wall Street. After his press conference, the stocks of all the major defense companies soared.

We spend more on defense than the next umpteen nations Combined - and many of those are dependable allies - that is insane.

Close many overseas bases, take the troops from those bases, put some on our border, use the rest to replace mercenaries (Blackwater) - mercenaries get paid way above our troops.

Scrub the missile defense program - all those "tests" were faked, and who is it that would be lobbing the missiles???

Not even a good try. Unemployment rose as a result of the economic crash at the end of 2008 - which both parties are to blame for. If you look at the very same chart that Michele Bachmann used in her SOTU rebuttal (you can find it online - I did), you will see unemployment peaked in 2009, and is lower than 2009 levels for 2010 and 2011 so far. Jobs always lag other economic indicators on both the up and down sides - the good news is that GDP growth has resumed, so the job situation should continue to improve.

I know you feel Obama is the root of all evil, but facts don't support you.

Not even a good try. Unemployment rose as a result of the economic crash at the end of 2008 - which both parties are to blame for. If you look at the very same chart that Michele Bachmann used in her SOTU rebuttal (you can find it online - I did), you will see unemployment peaked in 2009, and is lower than 2009 levels for 2010 and 2011 so far. Jobs always lag other economic indicators on both the up and down sides - the good news is that GDP growth has resumed, so the job situation should continue to improve.

I know you feel Obama is the root of all evil, but facts don't support you.

'Bama, one of the "tactics" used by posters on both sides of the aisle that rarely have validity is the whole "correlation is causation" fallacy.

It is especially used by posters to demonstrate how "good" or "bad" a job any President was with respect to an isolated economic statistic.

With respect to the recession and job loss, President Obama had little to do with either [except as one might assign "responsibility" to any member of Congress leading up to the recession. And Bush wasn't the main culprit, either. The recession was the job killer, and as the recent Report on the financial crisis made clear, there were lots of contributors that lead to this disaster, both public from both parties,and private,]

At the same time, his economic policies, which did not even begin to effect the economy until around the time the recession "officially" ended in June 2009, have not had the benefit projected [by the Romer & Berstein Report] or even usual, when compared to other recessions. Yes jobs lag, but they usually begin to get better shortly after the peak of unemployment. That's not happening this time. And yes -- GDP has turned positive, but again, it has not done so as robustly as after most recessions, and even now is barely good enough to just stay even with population growth as far as unemployment is concerned. And the FED in Nov revised their projection for GDP growth downward to a range of 3% to 3.6% -- which if true, will barely still keep up with population growth on jobs.

Gates has only himself to blame for this state of affairs. Rather than saying that, despite the hard economic times, the defense budget is still going up, or that the fiscal 2012 budget will be higher than the fiscal 2011 budget in real terms, he emphad only the cuts he was making. In addition, rather than claiming just the $78 billion in cuts in the proposed budget, Gates tried to take credit for making $178 billion in cuts — without acknowledging that $100 billion of those cuts would be shifted to other programs.

He also gave himself credit for having made $300 billion in reductions since he came into office in 2006, yet Gates failed to note that the baseline defense budget has grown by 19 percent, or $87 billion, in real terms since 2010.

An example of the CLASSIC shell game inside the Beltway --- I asked for $10 more next year than I had last year, but only got $5 more. Therefore, I "cut" $5 and should be feted as a budget cut hero!!